DESPITE Allostock gooseberry growers facing one of their hardest years yet, the club celebrated its 118th show in style on Saturday at The Crown of Peover.

75-year-old Jim Hart, secretary of the Allostock Gooseberry Association, told the Guardian that the club had a good turnout this year, with members of the public dropping by to watch the competition unfold.

With 10 members, Jim said that the club’s hardest challenge for 2016 was the low harvest, which has been suffered across Cheshire gooseberry societies due to adverse weather conditions.

“I did well this year, I won the heaviest berry in the show,” said Jim. “But we did have problems with the growth this year. Nearly all of my reds fell off and some of the other members were also short of berries.

“The weather earlier in the year wasn’t good; we had dull days and then when the sun came out it was extremely hot. I don’t think the trees knew whether they were coming or going. When that’s the case they tend to just drop their berries.”

Jim has also battled health problems throughout the year, going through open surgery just four weeks before the show.

He has credited his wife Anna for all her work helping him grow the gooseberries in the run up to the show while he was in hospital.

“There wasn’t much I could do,” added Jim. “Anna helped with most of it. I just left her to it. She put the shading on to stop them from growing over ripe, and to keep the wasps.

“Anna is the treasurer so she collects all the money on the day, runs the raffle table, she does so much work for it.”

The show followed the same format as it has done previous years, starting at 2pm with the weighings for each category- which took around two and a half hours this year.

Anne West, landlady at the Crown of Peover, served the hungry harvesters homemade ‘cow pie’ and chips with blueberry crumble and custard.

“We thanked Anne with a bunch of flowers,” said Jim. “She even presents the cups for us as well at the end of the day.”

Allostock Gooseberry Association is currently looking for new members. For more information visit allostockparishcouncil.co.uk/gooseberry-association/